Never Miss an Update.

Refugees Deeply is designed to help you understand the complex web of geopolitical, human rights, environmental, legal and other factors combining to make the refugee issue one of the most challenging of our lifetimes. Our editors and expert contributors are working around the clock to bring you greater clarity and comprehensive coverage.

Sign up to our newsletter to receive our weekly updates, special reports, and featured insights as we widen the lens on this critical – and quintessentially human – issue.

The Dark Reality for Women Migrants in Morocco

Morocco’s policy toward migrants is more generous than most, issuing work permits and refusing to evict undocumented refugees. But women in the country’s refugee camps are vulnerable to exploitation and abuse, Fabíola Ortiz reports for Women & Girls Hub.

Many women migrants make their way to Morocco in the hopes of moving on to Europe, but end up stuck in crime-ridden camps surrounded by garbage. Fabiola Ortiz

FEZ, Morocco – Born and raised in Lagos, 16-year-old Juliet Bamawo left her home and her family a year ago to travel thousands of miles from Nigeria to Morocco, propelled by the dream of studying at a European university and one day becoming a nurse. But soon after she arrived, reality set in. Instead of living in an apartment in Europe and learning about nursing, Bamawo is living in a makeshift camp beside Fez’s newly refurbished train station, in a tent made from plastic and scraps of material. There is no running water, and the tents are surrounded by garbage.

“I came here to travel to Europe, but there is no money,” she says. “I am now trying to get money, I am looking for help. It is difficult to live here. If there was a job and I was paid, I would work.”

Bamawo is among 15 Nigerian women living in the camp of around 300 residents from 10 sub-Saharan countries. Many were drawn by Morocco’s recently relaxed immigration policy, which tolerates camps like the one in Fez. But that’s as far as the welcome goes: Once migrants arrive, usually planning to continue on to Europe, they are given no support and essentially left to fend for themselves.

The lack of provisions leaves migrants unable to find work, abandoned in squalid, crime-ridden camps, and unable to move on to their final destination. And for women migrants who come to Morocco without an accompanying man, that usually means arriving to a life of poverty, exploitation and abuse.

The North African country of 35 million people has historically been a magnet for migrants. Many arrive with an “obsession to cross Gibraltar at any cost,” says Mohamed Khachani, president of the Moroccan Association for Studies and Research on Migration. But in response to the ongoing refugee crisis, many European countries have strengthened their borders, leaving large numbers of migrants stuck in Morocco. “There used to be evictions of clandestine migrants from Morocco. Nowadays it is not common to deport anymore,” says Khachani.

The drop in evictions is a result of a new strategy on immigration and asylum that Morocco announced in 2013, based on recommendations issued by the Moroccan National Human Rights Council. According to the report, Morocco “undoubtedly suffers from the effects of a strict European policy of control of its external borders.” So the government decided to adopt a human rights-based approach to documenting migrants. In a one-off move, Moroccan authorities issued around 27,000 residence permits to migrants between September 2013 and February 2015. The carte de séjour includes a work permit and offers access to primary and secondary schooling, but not to public health insurance.

Juliet Bamawo, 16, has dreams of becoming a nurse but can’t find enough work to get her out of the refugee camp in Fez. (Fabiola Ortiz)

The majority of women migrants who come to Morocco in hopes of crossing through the country to gain entry into Europe are from Nigeria and Cameroon, but there are also women from Mali, Ivory Coast and the Democratic Republic of Congo. And for many of them, the already risky journey along the Trans-Sahara Highway is made even more treacherous by the constant threat of exploitation and sexual violence.

“Women suffer more than men. When they cross over 6,000 kilometers (3,700 miles), imagine every single border they have to cross,” says Khachani. “They suffer countless violations of numerous types.” According to his research, one-third of the migrant women living in Morocco were abused on their way to North Africa.

The U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR) estimates that of the over 6,000 refugees and asylum seekers considered persons of concern in Morocco, 44 percent are women. And a study by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) found most women migrants in Morocco travel without family members, but often in groups with other migrants.

“Women should be treated differently, they should be protected from rape and human trafficking … And for those who have babies, we should help them with daycare and kindergartens.”

Migrants’ rights advocates say that while Morocco’s new immigration policy seems to treat migrants more humanely than many other countries, it fails to protect those most vulnerable once they arrive. “Women should be treated differently, they should be protected from rape and human trafficking. We should give them shelters and healthcare support,” says Moha Ennaji, president of the South-North Center for Intercultural Dialogue and Migration Studies and director of Morocco’s first PhD program in gender studies. “And for those who have babies, we should help them with daycare and kindergartens.”

Noting that Morocco has no women-only migrant shelters, Ennaji, who also works as a consultant to the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, says more needs to be done to help migrants once they get to Morocco. The new policy “basically says that we don’t deport them, we don’t beat them up … we tolerate them, [but] they can beg and fight for a job.”

As head of the national body for the care and protection of migrants in Morocco, Fatima Attari deals directly with girls like Bamawo who are living in refugee camps. Attari says fighting against racism and discrimination are key to helping integrate undocumented women. “We need to welcome, listen, inform, guide, advise, assist them and provide legal, social and professional support,” she says.

While Bamawo still plans to one day make the dangerous sea crossing to Europe, these days she isn’t driven as much by her dream of becoming a nurse as by her desperation to move to somewhere safe and clean. “If I had good shelter, I would stay in Morocco,” she says. “Look at our environment here, it is very dirty. We need help; we are sick. We don’t know who can help us.”

About the Author

Fabíola Ortiz is a Luso-Brazilian journalist dedicated to reporting on development and human rights. She has lived in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Buenos Aires, Washington, DC and New York. Follow her @FabiolaOrtizRio.

Never miss an update.

Republish this article

Our mission is to empower stakeholders and the wider public with high quality information, insights, and analysis on critical global issues. To help achieve this, we encourage you to republish the text of any article that contains a Republish button on your own news outlet.

By copying the HTML below, you agree to adhere to our republishing guidelines.

By copying the HTML below, you agree to adhere to our republishing guidelines. Click to expand

We simply ask that you:

Ensure that you include a line of our HTML tracking code on every article you republish. This is a lightweight, efficient way for us to see the number of page views of each specific article published on our partners’ websites. This does not affect page layout, nor does it provide any information about your users, other web pages on your site, or any further data. By copying and pasting the HTML code in the box below, the tracking code is automatically included.

If, for any reason, you do not copy the code prepared for you, please paste this code snippet into the end of the article in your CMS:

Note at the top and/or bottom of the story that it originally appeared on Refugees Deeply. This note should include a direct link to the original article. Also please include a sentence that offers the reader the opportunity to join the Refugees’s mailing list.

This should read : “This article originally appeared on Refugees Deeply. You can find the original here. For important news about the global migration crisis, you can sign up to the Refugees email list.”

If you want to republish a photo, contact us. Some sources don't allow their images to be republished without permission.

If you'd like to translate a story into another language, contact us.

We often republish pieces from our partners. If you want to republish a partner’s story, please credit the original partner and include a “via News Deeply” link.

Note that News Deeply considers the publication date to be the date marked on the story, and is not responsible for any content that you choose to repost.

After republication on the partner website, please mention the relevant Deeply social media handle in your social promotion, such as @SyriaDeeply, @WaterDeeply, @WomenGirlsHub on Twitter or tag the appropriate site’s Facebook page.

News Deeply material should not to be provided, in whole or in part, directly or indirectly, to third parties or affiliates for redistribution through those entities, unless prior approval has been obtained from News Deeply in writing.

You may not automatically or systematically republish all or the majority of our material from our sites; all stories must be chosen individually.

You may not sell our content or republish it for commercial purposes.

We reserve the right to request that any partner ceases republication of our content, including but not limited to if the guidelines listed above not being followed.

If you have any questions or concerns please contact community@newsdeeply.com